Sunday, October 15, 2006

FOR THE RECORD...

FROM APRIL 1990 THROUGH APRIL 1995

The last post ended the travelling period up to December 1994. The next will deal with Eurodisney in April 1995. Meanwhile there were a lot of trips that left no photo tracing, though some of them have been recorded in video. As they could not generate posts, the purpose of this post is to register them pro memoria futura.

In 1990, the air flight trips that left no trace at all - photo or video - include:
Brussels in July, September and October;
Geneva in July and October;
New York in August and December;
Faro twice in August;
Zurich in August;
Basle in October, and
Paris in November and December!

Meanwhile I found a black and white photo of a reception in Washington D.C., in April 1990,


"IMF STAFF and white wine"

and some lousy photos from Brussels, in June 1990, including the only one with the Manneken Pis. See:


"GRAND PLACE - La Chaloupe d'or, where many filet americain sandwiches were eaten and many Kwak drunken; anyhow, the fatness effect came only much later..."


"MANNEKEN PIS"


"THEATRE - Some operas and concerts seen, but not many..."

The year 1991 was a curious one. I could not find a single photo of the trips made during this year. There are, however, some video recordings from New York, in April, May and August, as well as from Switzerland in November.
Anyhow, I flew 36 times, accounting to 70172 miles, during that year...
Here is the register of the photo-traceless trips:
Brussels in January, September, twice in October and three times in November: In December 1991, the European Council approved the Maastricht Treaty, which was signed in February 1992!
Paris in February, March, April and September;
New York in March (the first time I flew the Concorde, and the only with Air France - flight AF001), twice in April, May, August, October and November!
Amsterdam in April, and
Zurich, twice in November.

The year 1992 started again with Brussels in January (final details), and the city was repeated in April and November.
In late January, I attended the oddest Conference I've ever been too. I flew through Munich and Salzburg and was driven from there to Waidring. It was supposed to be some kind of a Law Conference on «Corporate Insolvency», organized by Dennis Campbell and the Center for International Legal Studies. It started on a Sunday, and as soon as I arrived to the Salzburg airport the first question from the lady who was taking care of the transfer was: where are your skis? The funny thing was that the Conference sessions started at 7:00 a. m. till 9:15; then, there was a break until 4:30 p.m., when the Conference resumed till 6:00 p.m.! In the meantime, Conference participants went skiing.
I profited the opportunity to visit the area, including Zell-am-See, Kitzbühel (to where the Waidring conferences were moved some years later, with much profit for tourists), and even revisit Innsbruck. There is a short 21' video of this trip, but no photos whatsoever...
The return trip was made through Zurich and Paris, but there are no photos of any of these stops!
Some more photo-traceless trips include:
New York in February, March, first time in April, May, June and December. From the second April trip, I found these photos:


"JAPANESE RESTAURANT - Between February 1990 and April 1992 I had many meals in most of the New York best Japanese restaurants. This was the only photo taken on one of such occasions"


"RECEPTION hosted by Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy at the top floor of One Chase Manhattan Plaza!"

Traceless are also:
Paris in February, March, May and November - Neither photos nor videos;
London in April - Nothing left;
Strasbourg in September - Not even memories, may be some Riesling...

In 1993, further to the trips covered by the posts, there were also these:
Brussels (as always): twice in January, once in February, March, April, May, June, July, first time in September, twice in October, twice in November and three times in December. Ugh...
Paris in January, March, May, June, and November. From the September trip there are some photos, taken from the top of the Triumph Arch. I think it was the first time that I went up there, after 24 years visiting Paris...


"TRIUMPH ARCH Commissioned in 1806 by Napoleon, shortly after his victory at Austerlitz"


"LA DEFENSE - View towards the modern Arch and the skyscrapers of the Defense quarter"


"CHAMPS ELYSÉES"


"SACRÉ COEUR at the distance"


"EIFFEL TOWER"

No photos, no videos from:
Rome in February;
New York in August and September;
London in October;
Geneva in October and December; and
Basle in December.

However, I found some amazing pictures from the Golden Gate Bridge, taken in September. Here are some of them:




"GOLDEN GATE"

Anyhow, 1993 generated many video tapes: in fact, there are, at least, four hours of video recordings of the trip through Brazil - Salvador, Brasília, Belo Horizonte, Congonhas, Ouro Preto, Iguaçu Falls and Rio de Janeiro -, as well as seven hours from the trip to the Canadian Rockies and the US in August/September 1993, and more than one hour of the Chamonix/Mont Blanc/Lausanne/Villars and Geneva trip in October.

The year 1994 has also lots of photo-traceless trips. They started - guess - with:
Brussels twice in January, and then once in February, and March;
and then
Paris in January, June and September;
Ponta Delgada (Azores) in March and twice in December;
London in April;
New York also in April;
Buenos Aires in September; and
Brazil in October/November: Recife, Olinda, Natal, Genipabu, Pitangui, and Salvador!

At least there are video recordings from London in April, Brazil in Fall, Buenos Aires in September, Paris in December - further to the photos, some of which were included in the post Paris, Always Paris -, and, of course, from the trip to Kenya and the Seychelles!

Finally, 1n 1995, before the next post dedicated to Eurodisney in April 1995, there were these photo-traceless trips:
Paris in January and March;
Barcelona in February - more than two hours of video recordings;
Azores - Ponta Delgada twice, Terceira and Pico - in March; and
Brussels in April!

No wonder that by those times I had an average of more than 150 nights a year slept abroad...

Saturday, October 07, 2006

PARIS, ALWAYS PARIS...

REVISITING PARIS, WITH PARENTS - DECEMBER 1994


"LA CONCIERGERIE, a palace whose name derives from «concierge» (the royal governor who was in charge of the building), was built on the site of the former Palais des Capetiens. La Conciergerie was the oldest prison in France and was where Robespierre, Charlotte Corday and Marie Antoinette were imprisoned during the Revolution"


"PALAIS DE JUSTICE - Located on the Île de la Cité, the Law Courts occupy more than 4 hectares of land and the building contains around 24 km of hallways, 7,000 doors and more than 3,150 windows"



"NOTRE DAME was one of the first Gothic cathedrals, and is widely considered one of the finest examples of Gothic architecture in Europe. For many many years there were works around ..."


"SEINE RIVER - The Banks of the Seine in Paris were added to the UNESCO's list of World Heritage Sites in 1991. After locks were installed to artificially raise the level in the 1800s, the average depth of the Seine today at Paris is about eight metres"


"BRIDGES - Paris has 36 bridges, which can be seen at the LPCP site!"


"PLACE VENDOME is the work of Jules Hardouin-Mansart, and was begun in 1698. It is an example of city-planning with residences for the wealthy along the sides and two openings, which form the main axis"



"THE TUILERIES GARDEN - designed in 1664 by Le Notre, the gardener of the king of France Louis the 14th and the Versailles park designer - is the most central park in Paris, along the Seine river from the Louvre museum to the Concorde square"


"PLACE DU TERTRE - MONTMARTRE"


"STRAVINSKI FOUNTAIN (also called La Fontaine des Automates), features works by Jean Tinguely and Niki de Saint-Phalle"

Thursday, October 05, 2006

SEYCHELLES' SUNSETS!

PRASLIN - AUGUST 1994

I was always impressed by sunset colours. And today, eight years after the experience, I still remember the most fantastic sunset I've ever seen and from which, unfortunately, there is no record at all - an August 1998 sunset at the island of Viti Levu in the Fiji Islands!
Here are some shots from Praslin's sunsets during our stay in 1994...



***






***






"COLOURS"